Track Listing
1. Enter the Lists
2. Down
3. Narrative
4. Tourettes
5. Flip Flop
6. Gin & It
7. Back to Back
8. Come and Have a Go If You Think You're Hard Enough
9. Men United
10. Mirror
11. Far Sub Dominant
12. Whisky Sex Shack
13. Thunder
14. Belly to Belly
| Details | | Producer: | The Mekons | | Distributor: | Alternative Dis. Alliance | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Personnel includes: Terrie (guitar); Rebecca Gates (background vocals).
Recorded at Belly-To-Burley Studio, Leeds, England and Kingsize Studio, Chicago, Illinois.
The Mekons spent the '90s skittering from garage-rock record to scatological art project to drum-machine ditty to nearly commercial album and back again. ME incorporates nearly all of that into what may be their most accessible album of the decade, a collection of ragged harmonies, chanted choruses and technological dabbling that sounds something like Lou Reed and some female drinking buddies fronting Chumbawamba. The lyrics are a sometimes plaintive, sometimes mocking and sometimes silly barrage of advertising slogans, X-rated sex-talk, self-love and self-loathing that seem to catalogue the modern world's ways of isolating and disembodying its inhabitants.
As if to suggest we are all dogs lapping at whatever morsel of hope we can reach, "Narrative" is told from the point of view of an actual canine. The list of ways to avoid reality as noted in "Men United" advances from drink and drugs to sex, money and religion. You can also avoid reality with the song's repetitive yet irresistible melody, or with a sad and boozy humdinger like "Come And Have A Go If You Think You're Hard Enough," which would make a perfect fight song for Charles Bukowski and his pals.
Editorial Reviews
3.5 Stars (out of 5) - ...There's little trace of the band's trademark punk C&W on this beats-filled concept album about desire, narcissism and TV....the Mekons make pissing the night away and talking dirty seem like acts of revolution.
Rolling Stone (06/11/1998)
| See an error? Submit a change request |
All rights reserved.
